Cameo Pizza

Cameo Pizza has eight locations in the neighborhoods of Northwest Ohio, and since 1936 the family owned business has served up pizzas for local townsfolk with a real small-town charm. The different locations seem to have different dining and delivery hours, but in Put In Bay, people seem to know it as the only late night food option.

The pizza is probably the ideal late night food; it’s greasy and comes warm and with a crispy thin crust, “Columbus style.” Each pizza is absolutely loaded with ingredients from edge to edge, and topped tall with them. The meats are smoked and very tasty, while the vegetables are crisp and delicious. The overall pizzas seem to be inundated with grease though. Problematically so, in fact the pizzas I tried needed napkins on top to deal with the pools of it. I suspect the problem here is too much cheese. Then again, that’s a relative problem, which some people love. Then, it also goes back to the late-night option, where you’re trying to get something greasy, anyway. Overall I find this average, though, only because many of the other communities where Cameo is located aren’t resort towns or nightspots, they’re local communities that value substance. All told there are 10 specialty pizzas and about 22 ingredients on the menu. I’ll grant that a lot of pizza places have made great pizzas with a small selection of ingredients, but in this instance it would be nice for a bigger pick of veggies at least…the specialty pizzas are somewhat limited. If you can add sauerkraut to the pizzas, maybe some garlic cloves would be good too? My experience is that more ingredients only help things.

The service is impressive, and I must say I find it to be one of the stronger points in the stronger aspects of the chain. Being a primarily small-town chain, they do face a disadvantage in that some ingredients don’t seem to be available. At the same time, the people I’ve encountered at Cameo are surprisingly pleasant. No matter if it’s lunch time or late at night, the people seem absolutely delightful and happy to take care of an order in any way they can. It doesn’t matter that, at the Put In Bay location for example, they must deal with a ton of tourists and late night orders, they’re just as chipper and friendly at any time of the day. That’s the strength that makes me want to come back.

In short, Cameo Pizza has good pizza, but the service is great, and that’s what would attract me to the place again.

Recommendations

The different locations have very different hours, not all of which are posted. You’ll probably have to call ahead to get that information.

Unfortunately the selection of ingredients is limited, however the house pizzas are great. Consider them first.

Some locations have dine-in seating, others don’t. Keep this in mind and ask ahead.